I’d ask you to dry your eyes, but your nasolacrimals have already been hindered thanks to the unconscious acceptance by your brain that this was never meant to last! Multiple releases per year for several years and a tour schedule that inspires reasonable complaints from Centralia residents about when they’ll earn a visit have culminated in the present hiatus for Thee Oh Sees, who, in true interludial fashion, reportedly have an album set for release this spring. Despite that, back in December, frontman John Dwyer confirmed the “well deserved break and transitional period” and proclaimed in front of a crowd at San Fran’s Great American Music Hall that the band’s performance was their last “for a long while. So dig in.” Thanks for the forewarning, John! And no, don’t tell me that I should’ve caught one of the half-dozen shows that you’ve already performed in my town! Ugh, I was busy. :(

In any case, while we temporarily endure Thee withdrawal, and while Dwyer and also-vocalist Brigid Dawson acclimate to an intra-state move away from their Bay Area, the former’s Castle Face label continues its operations. And one of those operations is releasing a full-length solo release from Dwyer under the name Damaged Bug, entitled Hubba Bubba. A press release mentions the use of a variety of “synthesizers, drum machines, and assorted hand-made electronics,” so in other words, the guitar on which he’s consistently wailed has been abandoned for the sake of “seeing other instruments,” so to speak. I’m not really missing it, in this case.

Those looking to dip their dainty toes into the ocean of Bryn Jones’ Muslimgauze project might need to look elsewhere. But, if you’re maybe interested in your whole leg and probably most of your mid-section going for a bit of a swim, then according to The Vinyl Factory, Vinyl-on-Demand has got just the ticket. In mid-April, the German label will release a 10LP retrospective box set of the legendary producer’s early work (spanning from 1983 to 1988). That’s right! Ten! Because of how math works, that means if you break one, you’ll still have nine records left! Now, mind you, those nine records that you have left won’t have any of the same music on them as that 10th one your clumsy uncle just snapped, so I would say keep them away from your uncle and don’t actually try the math trick I’ve described here.

The box set, entitled Chasing the Shadow of Bryn Jones will also include a 208-page book, a poster, and a CD. And, if you’re a member of the Vinyl-on-Demand record club, you’ll also be entitled to an exclusive 10-inch (math fact: that’s one inch for every LP in the box set) which will include EVEN MORE MUSIC. If you’ve gotten this deep in the news post and are thinking “Huh, I kinda don’t know a whole lot about Muslimgauze aside from the fact that he was super prolific and Pro-Palestinian because that’s basically all anyone ever really says about him,” The Vinyl Factory has you covered. Check out the comically long tracklisting below.

Movement, the most “gorgeously pranayamic” album of 2012, was an incredible hybridization of modern composition and club music that emphasized Holly Herndon’s breathtaking (sometimes literally) voice experiments. In fact, it made it to #13 on our Favorite 50 Albums of 2012 list, not because it was lucky enough to have received enough votes, but simply because we were lucky enough to be privy to Herndon’s strange yet comforting sonic innovations.

Herndon’s follow-up to Movement is a two-song EP called Chorus. It continues a similar project of vocal processing and genre hybridization, but it sounds considerably different: on the title track, for example, Herndon’s source material comes in part from her daily browsing habits, including sounds from YouTube, Skype, and more. Check its Akihiko Taniguchi-directed video below, which visually articulates the track’s themes quite well:

Chorus is released today on RVNG Intl., digitally and as a limited 12-inch.

Meanwhile, RVNG Intl. says Herndon will soon “offer a web-based tool allowing users to compose their own version of ‘Chorus’ around a browser based experience1.”

Chorus tracklist:

01. Chorus
02. Solo Voice

1. Is it just me, or does it seem like Herndon is just trying to make more work for us proletariats? This is typical bourgeois rhetoric that just shows the necessity of building a coordinated movement on a national and world scale that links immediate demands for higher wages with a clear socialist program to challenge Herndon’s dominance and defend working-class families against continuous blackmailing. The economy needs to be based on the needs of the millions, not the greed of the billionaires. If the system can’t afford good wages and services, then we can’t afford this system!! UGH!!!

As the old saying goes, you never know which men enjoy fighting other men to the death with knives. You think you know, but you have no idea (who derives pleasure from watching knife wounds drain a person of their life). For instance, one may assume they can pin down German composer and pianist Nils Frahm. Probably a classy guy, active in the arts scene. Attends between three and nine wine-and-cheese parties a year. Has not engaged in a backstreet knife battle, the outcome of which found him standing over the body of a 37-year-old construction worker, while the blood from Frahm’s own wounds dripped onto his unfortunate opponent. Well, you’d be mostly right, but you’d also be a little wrong.

Viewed through your lens of expectations, Frahm’s upcoming US tour seems innocuous enough. If you look closer, though, you will note that the pianist has booked himself in the top knife-fighting cities in the Western Hemisphere. Frahm, who is known for his technique of playing a grand or upright piano with one hand while simultaneously playing a synthesizer with the other hand, as well as his deadly “lightning stab” technique known to strike a victim with both the power and swiftness of a lightning bolt, will play a concert in each city, supported by labelmate Douglas Dare. After each of these concerts, Frahm will disappear into the city’s underground, only to reappear the next morning, bloodlust sated.

If you would like to know more about knives or are thinking of purchasing a knife yourself, please watch the new video for Nils Frahm’s “Says” first. The video contains no references to knives, but I think you will understand the deadly attraction of the knife afterwards. Visual artists Romain Assénat and Ana Silva created the video. Neither of these artists have ever fought with a knife.

[Note: The story about Fox and Graves detailed in the first paragraph is 100% fiction.]

The other day Greg Fox (from Guardian Alien, ZS, Liturgy) was just walking down the street in Queens when some fellah popped out and said, “Hey, Mr. Fox, you wanna come to my basement lab?” Ignoring all prevailing wisdom re: how one ought to typically avoid going into peoples’ “basement labs,” Fox was all like, “Sure!” And so they went. Once in the basement lab, the fellah asked Fox, “Hey, Mr. Fox, you wanna let me hook this machine up to you and measure your heart and stuff?” And again, ignoring the fact that most folks you meet on the street who want to hook machines up to you are probably not being totally forthright about what exactly that machine does, Fox was all like, “Sure!” And thus Fox’s new solo record Mitral Transmission was born. It’s out February 18, and you can pre-order it here.

“What, Taylor? I think you skipped a few steps.” Okay, well, let’s back up. As it happens, that “fellah” was actually the legendary free jazz drumming pioneer and holistic healer Milford Graves (perhaps best known for his work with Paul Bley and the New York Art Quartet), and he and Greg Fox were already bros at the time of the basement lab incident. Also that sketchy-sounding machine was totally legit. Turns out it’s something Graves has been working on for some time now, based on “technology to generate music from the natural rhythms of the human heart.” Fox took the output from the machine in conjunction with specialized software to generate the score on which Mitral Transmission is based.

The record will be out on Data Garden, and it’ll come in a limited edition run of “200 plantable hand-made art prints,” as well as a digital download. Because “Digital files are easily lost by the impermanence of computing” and “Physical objects like CDs, tapes and records last far beyond their usability and possibly even our existence as a species,” Data Garden makes their releases plantable in an attempt to find a middle between the ease of digital and the desire for an “awesome physical object.”

The sorta-I-guess-whatever-controversially-named Syracuse punk rockers Perfect Pussy have taken over the internet in such a short time that they are now the top web search results for like the first 10 or so pages. Not so Google images, my friends! (Shout out to the porn advertisement that comes up when you Google this shit that declares “This porn is insane! 100% free.” This porn is INSANE, guys.) And to think that this entire internet takeover happened with one simple self-released cassette-only EP, I Have Lost All Desire for Feeling. This cassette is INSANE, guys.

That crazy ol’ cassette caught the attention of Captured Tracks, who will release the band’s debut full-length, Say Yes to Love, on March 18. Until then, frontwoman Meredith Graves and co. will be touring the US and Canada throughout January and March, with stops at record stores! (Rough Trade New York) colleges! (Grinnell) and fascinating tiny art towns! (Marfa). Tour dates are lovingly presented below in a handy, easy-to-read format, so that your computer doesn’t get flagged by your company’s creepy tech guy.